Controlling our race-based fears

Lisa Akchin hit the nail on the head on how to advance race relations in this country when she decided "to stop seeing a statistic when I approached a black man on the street and begin seeing an individual coming from somewhere and going somewhere" ("Moving from fear to friendliness," July 25).

That's great advice. This method of being aware of the assumptions that spring up in your mind when seeing a person of another race, and then finding you can fairly quickly negate those assumptions by purposely looking at The Other as an individual human being instead (with race as only an afterthought), really does work. Try it!